Jeremy Jordan Choose-Your-Own-Adventure: Broadway Season 2011-2012

byluckyonNovember 16, 2011

Your name is Jeremy Jordan. You are the star of the Broadway musical Bonnie & Clyde. You are very handsome in a weird way and sing like a dream, and have extremely shapely and appealing forearms. You are Broadway’s hottest new thing, and you try to be humble about it, but honestly, you think it’s kind of fucking cool and you’re already writing your Tony Awards speech and mentally preparing your mom for that moment when you inevitably turn up in People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People as the token Broadway person. You are about to have an interesting season. Correction: You are already having an interesting season. Your immediate future, however, is a little up in the air, thanks to the fact that you are so damn popular and square-jawed and deeply, deeply in demand. Now, you must choose your fate. Consider each of the following possible scenarios, several of which neglect minor complicating factors like contracts, the law, personal loyalties, reality, and basic common sense:

Go down with the ship. Congratulations! You are the new star of Newsies on Broadway. You are not sad about Bonnie & Clyde. You are not even remotely fussed. You maybe even have some time off to do some traveling, perfect your golf swing, hang out with your cute fiance, and ease back into your Jack Kelly New York accent. Clyde? Who’s Clyde? You will remember him, vaguely, when you are nominated for a Tony Award for playing him, but until then, you’re enjoying the sweet life.

Quit before it closes for maximum dramz, a la Will Chase. You get spooked by the terrible reviews and decide to get the hell out of there, immediately. In fact, you run out at intermission one night, four shows before closing, never to return. Then, you go on Twitter and have a meltdown about how Bonnie & Clyde is the greatest show ever written, how uneducated, tasteless American audiences don’t know a thing about quality theater, how the show deserves to stay open. Your attempt to inspire a grass-roots movement to save it is a failure. You cool off for a couple of days, offer a weird half-apology on your Facebook page that everyone screen caps in case you delete it, and then go star in Newsies.

Scenario 2: Bonnie & Clyde Becomes a Runaway Hit That Will Apparently Play Forever, Like Cats

Stay in the show, because you’d be an idiot not to. Of course you stay in the show! It’s a fucking hit! Ben Brantley sang you swooning orgasmic arias of adoration and complemented your wicked green eyes, and he meant that both literally and figuratively, and as a reference to the musical Wicked. Frank Wildhorn is a genius! The house is packed! Every night at the stage door, people pick you up, put you on their shoulders and carry you down 45th Street chanting, “JEREMY! JEREMY!” You get nominated for a Tony. You win it. You stay in the show for a year until Steven Soderbergh casts you as a drug dealer with a heart of gold in a socio-political drama where George Clooney plays your handsome drug dealer mentor. You win an Oscar. When people ask you about Newsies, you refer to it as, “That little project that created me, just like Christian Bale.” You remember it fondly, but not often.

Quit, because true artists follow their hearts. You love Bonnie & Clyde. You really do. You’re gobsmacked by its success and humbled by the adoring reviews, and you enjoy having Laura Osnes wrap herself around you like a spider eight times a week, but you know, in your heart of hearts, that Jack Kelly is your true destiny. You quit, amidst much ridiculous hubbub—Michael Riedel devotes an entire column to it—to do Newsies. You are nominated against yourself for a Tony Award, and it ends in a tie between you and you. You give a heart-rending speech about how much love you have for the Broadway community, and humbly thank everyone in the room, because you have worked with all of them this beautiful, glorious season, and how it’s not about the show. It’s about the love. You now have a way to symmetrically and stylishly decorate your fireplace mantle.

Scenario 3: Bonnie & Clyde Gets Slammed, But You in Particular Get Raves

Stay in the show, because if you don’t, the guilt will kill you. Because it’s all on you now, right? You quit, and the show closes. And besides, you are weary of causing a minor but interesting scandal that will be ruthlessly analyzed by at least two somewhat-widely-read theater columnists, and several online chat boards. So you stay. Clyde’s not so bad, right? He’s not. He sings some good songs. He kills people because he’s had a hard life. It’s OK. You will have a small pang of regret when Jay Johnson wins YOUR TONY AWARD… you mean… the Tony Award… for Best Actor in a Musical for Newsies. But there are always other chances. Or a national tour.

Quit. Because fuck it. OH SHIT, now you’ve done it. You were the only reason why people were coming to see Bonnie & Clyde, but you couldn’t take the terrible reviews for the show so you decided to bail. Besides, you have wanted to play Jack Kelly since you were a wee child, and no one looks better than you in the Jack Kelly costume, and Newsies has already gotten a preliminary thumbs-up from the Times and from fangirls everywhere, and that feels comfortably affirmative. Are you feeling guilty? Not really. Jeff Calhoun doesn’t feel guilty, so you don’t feel guilty. You repeat this to yourself over and over again, particularly on Tony night, when you win for playing Jack Kelly.

Stay, after much hang-wringing. The reviews were pretty good, right? So what if Isherwood used the word “dunderheaded” three times? That’s not necessarily bad news. Look at Memphis. You love playing Clyde, you really do. No one needs to know that you sing “Santa Fe” in the shower every morning, or that Alan Menken has started forwarding your daily “check in” calls straight to voicemail. When you win the Tony for Bonnie & Clyde, you fuck up your whole acceptance speech and thank the Newsies creative team instead. Harvey Fierstein sits on the end of the third row, and cries happy and sad tears at the same time. It is a magical TV moment.

Quit, after much hand-wringing. So, you need to make a decision, and you decide to leave Bonnie & Clyde to do Newsies. Scandal ensues for ten hot minutes, but you think you chose wisely. Yeah, you’re kind of annoyed that Disney keeps trying to save money by shutting off the hot water in the theater and playing it like it’s supposed to help you get in character or some bullshit. And you do occasionally stand around and loudly say things like, “I bet they have lights in the dressing rooms over at Spider-Man.” But in general, you’re happy. You are deemed ineligible for the Tony Award because the nominating committee all got drunk one afternoon and decided it. You brood in your dark dressing room, and rock the high note in “Santa Fe” so no one sees your pain. Andrew Keenan-Bolger wins for Best Supporting Actor. He thanks you in his speech, and the cameras zoom in because you’re crying. Because they think it’s a Rory O’Malley thing all over again, and it’s so sweet. If they only knew.back to top

Okay, this is the best thing I’ve ever read. Clever, fun…oh so real and delightful. Jeremy Jordan is the bomb! And I’m so glad to play his mom in the show!! But as his mother, I’ll demand that he stay in our show because, you know, I need someone to cry about.

Will Chase did not quit High Fidelity. He left halfway through a performance because he was sick (my friend has a bootleg of this performance so you can hear how sick he sounds) and came back to the show two days later (when he was STILL sick). He performed in the closing performance. I don’t know why you have it out for him. Not everything is as gossipy as you want it to be.